


Breaking Even

by KaenNoMai



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s14e11 Damaged Goods, Gen, Hell Trauma, Hurt No Comfort, Ma'lak Box (Supernatural), like seriously none, there is no comfort in this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 16:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19468225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaenNoMai/pseuds/KaenNoMai
Summary: Dean Winchester spent forty years in Hell.He also just turned forty.He never thought he'd get far enough to break even.





	Breaking Even

Dean didn’t bother to pour the whiskey into a glass before swallowing some down. He regarded the bottle with detachment. It was expensive — more expensive than he would usually buy, but this… This was an exceptional situation.

Honestly? He didn’t think he’d make it this far. 

Forty.  _ Forty. _

January twenty-fourth, two thousand and nineteen.

Dean chuckled as he brought the bottle back up to his lips. It was almost ironic, wasn’t it?

Here he sat, celebrating the fact that he had been on Earth for as many years as he’d been in Hell, that he’d  _ finally  _ broke even, and he was planning on killing himself yet again.

Jesus, Dean could still remember the times, two or three years after Hell, that he’d brace himself for a punishment that wasn’t coming, or the times he’d expect to hear Alastair’s crooning, low voice come from behind him…

Even now, he’d still half-revert to his headspace in Hell when killing a particularly vocal humanoid monster, drift down into  _ make it hurt as much as possible, he’ll hurt me more _ —

Forty years of Hell didn’t just go away, even after all this time. When he dug himself out of Hell, more than half of his life had been down in the pit. Half of his memory, at this point, was Hell.

Dean could remember when Sam had mentioned something from their childhood, only to falter at Dean’s lack of recognition. Apparently, it had been a shared good memory between them, but Dean just couldn’t remember. It wasn’t even that he’d forgotten about the memory, exactly — it had just gotten buried beneath all the pain and years of Hell, like a memory that faded away as you grew older. Even now, ten years later, all Dean could remember was Sam retelling it to him, as a completely new experience. 

Memory was a fragile thing, wasn’t it?

Dean could remember carrying Sam out of the fire, and the time he tortured the soul of a child, but he couldn’t remember the first time Sam spoke or many of the days between the first day in Hell and the day he gave up. 

_ You remember Hell, don’t you? _

Dean chuckled lowly. 

Dean took another sip of the whiskey, appreciating the smooth burn that could only come from good, expensive whiskey. He wasn’t one to celebrate anniversaries - in fact, after Sam ran away to Stanford, he’d never celebrated another holiday until he was going to Hell. Even now – July fourth, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving – holidays and others would pass them by, only noticed when it affected a hunt.

But this anniversary was one Dean’d been looking forward to, no matter how impossible the thought that one day he would live longer on Earth than he had in Hell was.

There were times Dean doubted if he’d even left Hell — it was just like Alastair to play the long game, to take his hope, let it grow, and then to crush it in one fell swoop. 

So how ironic was it, that as he sat here with his whiskey and his thoughts, celebrating his fortieth birthday, that he was also sitting here, planning on how to get away from Sam to build his coffin and throw himself in the ocean, locked away with Michael for all eternity?

He’d finally outlived his time in Hell, and here he was trying to kill himself yet again. 

He chuckled and raised his glass, not sure to whom, and wondered how he’d celebrate his forty-year mark in the Ma’lak box.

Dean wondered what Alastair would think of him now, a self-deprecating smirk lifting on side of his mouth. 

**Author's Note:**

> look, my dudes,,,,
> 
> i have feelings about dean digging himself out of his grave and having spent a longer time in hell than he'd been alive. i have feelings about dean being conditioned in hell and still having those reactions from time to time, because you don't just ~get over hell~ ESPECIALLY when you have spent over HALF YOUR LIFE THERE. 
> 
> i have feelings okay? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (also it was ironic to me that he just passed his fortieth birthday and told sam to yeet him in the ocean so this was born)


End file.
